Log to file via PHP or log to MySQL database - which is quicker?

Question

I have a database driven website serving about 50,000 pages.

I want to track each webpage/record hit. I will do this by creating logs, and then batch processing the logs

Answer 1

If you are using either file based logging or database based logging, your biggest performance hit will be file/table locking. Basically, if client A and client B connects within a relatively small time frame, client B is stuck waiting for the lock to be released on the hits file/table before continuing.

The problem with a file based mechanism is that file locking is essential to ensure that your hits doesn't get corrupted. The only way around that is to implement a queue to do a delayed write to the file.

With database logging, you can at least do the following [MySQL using MyISAM]:

INSERT DELAYED INTO `hits` ...

See 12.2.5.2. INSERT DELAYED Syntax for more information.